


little bells

by onceuponamirror



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fake Dating, aka an attempt at tackling Tropes head on, also for the record this is comics!chuck and not tv!chuck, just feel that's important to establish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 03:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamirror/pseuds/onceuponamirror
Summary: She just wanted to close the book, but all chapters are meant to be read.Or, how she accidentally willed a boyfriend into existence.





	1. Chapter 1

The hitching goes off without a hitch.

As in, an adorable toddler rumbles down the walkway as the ringbearer and everyone coos, vows are shared, tears shed, people clap, and Betty is in the back, chugging champagne.

Which is probably not so all well and good, considering this is just the practice round.

 _It’s not so bad, really,_ Betty thinks, as she watches the new bride and groom gently sway across the dance floor. Considers that maybe she’s being dramatic.

After all, she’s _happy_ for Nancy, her best work friend. She looks beautiful tonight, she’s been beaming all day, and Betty _knows_ that her own anxiety around weddings is not fair to project around onto others.

And while she doesn’t know much about Nancy’s choice of husband, save for the fact that Chuck has done a couple of children’s books for the publisher for which they both work, their relationship certainly seems solid and cute, and Betty once again thinks that, alright, maybe she is being too dramatic.

But then she watches Chuck and Nancy share a kiss so tender and beautiful it feels wrong to have seen, and she curses. Apparently out loud, because a moment later, from a dry voice across the table comes, “You’d publish your mother with that mouth?”

She lowers her glass from her lips and glances over at the guy a few seats over. It’s just them at the table now, everyone else having gotten up to mingle, dance, or let themselves eat cake.

That is, just her and someone with dark hair, a downturned mouth that thus holds a frown with ease, and an angled face. Even in formal wear, something about him vaguely, dimly screams _I was once a disaffected youth._

She’d noticed him earlier; it was hard not to, when he was the cutest person at the table, even if the few times she looked over he was scowling or avidly puncturing his dinner with a fork.

But Betty knows what locking eyes at a wedding means, and she is _not_ here for a hook up. So she kept her roving gaze firmly away from him all throughout dinner, to the point she hadn’t even realized it was now just the two of them left.

“Pardon?” She asks, furrowing her brow at him. He looks back at her, eyes scanning across her face. Unfortunately, he’s still just as cute, especially as he loosens his tie and leans back in his chair.

“Dumb joke, never mind,” he sighs, even as Betty thinks, belatedly, it was actually kind of funny. “Bride or groom?”

“Bride,” she replies, straightening in her chair despite herself. _Sit up straight, Elizabeth. There’s no such thing as a second impression._ “You?”

“Both,” the guy says, after a long sip of water. “Kind of. Nancy is my editor, and Chuck did a cover for a book of mine. Only met him twice, though. Good guy.”

“Oh,” she says, blinking in surprise. He’s a writer then, which doesn’t exactly help her case of not finding a place to put attraction at a wedding. She’s always had a bit of a  _thing,_ as Veronica likes to put it, for writers. “I work for Random House too. YA though, so we probably wouldn’t have crossed paths unless you’re secretly the next Meg Cabot. I’m Betty,” she adds, reaching across the table to offer her hand. He shifts a chair closer in order to easily shake it.

“Jughead,” he returns, “but only colloquially. Nancy insisted I go by a pseudonym.”

“That was probably wise,” Betty says, trying to sound kind but smirking all the same. “What is it? Maybe I’ve read your book.”

“Oh, I’m the real Meg Cabot, actually,” Jughead grins, wiggling his eyebrows. She giggles, which is also not helping her determination against wedding hookups.

“Wow, I love your work,” she says seriously, a hand over her heart. “You really speak to the teenage girl in all of us.”

He scoffs, clearly wrestling with a deeper grin as his eyes roll up at the ceiling before landing back squarely on her. Then, after a long moment, and without any segue, “So, you seem pretty miserable.”

“Excuse me?” She asks, grateful she’s just finished sipping at her champagne, because a second earlier, and she would’ve choked on it.

Jughead shrugs. “Look, I’m not great at small talk, and I noticed you’ve fondly been cradling a drink every time something stupid and sappy happens. So. Just a professional courtesy that I ask.”

“I think that’s the opposite, actually,” she sighs, and his face twists with something like amusement. She folds her hands in her lap, trying not to blush when she thinks about the fact that he’s been apparently noticing her. “But yeah, I guess you’re right. I realized I’m not a big fan of weddings.”

“Huh,” he says, looking at her quizzically, like perhaps she’s a book he hasn’t read. She frowns, and he must think he’s done the wrong thing, because he hastens to add, “I mean. You just have that…show-biz look to you. Not literally, but that fresh off the bus to Manhattan look, where the world is your oyster, but also all the world’s a stage, you know the drill.”

“You don’t know me,” Betty says slowly, after a long moment, not even sure what he’s implying. Just because she’s…what, blonde, she isn’t allowed her own healthy dose of cynicism? Maybe if she was still sixteen and luminously hopeful about life and love, she’d understand what he meant.

But that Betty Cooper is all grown up, and despite being paid to edit the literary mind of a teenager every day, she does not think like one, not anymore.

“That’s true,” Jughead replies, scratching behind his ear. He looks uncomfortable. “Sorry. Okay. I have an annual checkup with the podiatrist for the foot stuck in my mouth, I promise.”

She laughs despite herself, almost wanting to stay offended. Her hands fidget in her lap, so she moves them onto the table, her palms flat against the silk tablecloths. “It’s not like I got left at the altar, or anything,” she says, without really meaning to. Surely he doesn’t care about her issues. “Actually, officially, I was the one who got cold feet. But it was a mutual disillusionment.”

“You were engaged?” He asks, after a pause.

“Oh, well, twice, technically,” she sighs, a little grin appearing at her mouth. She puts on a voice of faux-wistfulness. “The first fiancé is actually getting married himself in a couple of months. Not to me, but I’ll never forget the day he proposed—kindergarten, as we shared our crayons.”

Jughead digs his tongue into his cheek, eyebrows raised in amusement. “Sounds romantic.”

“Very,” she agrees.

“Still hung up on that high bar set by a five year old, eh?”

When she doesn’t say anything, just lets her eyes fall back on the now busy dance floor, she hears a soft _oh_ next to her. “You’re still hung up on him in general?” He asks, something in his voice she cannot place.

“Hung up is a strong way to put it,” Betty says, finally. Self-loathing is probably more accurate, the side effect a lifetime of asking herself why-nots. Why not me, why not now, why not us—but she’s not about to dump that on a stranger.

Still. Archie’s wedding is the biggest _why not_ of them all. She doesn’t want to be with him, she knows that much now, knows he was definitely right to want to stay just friends, but it’s always going to be the biggest rejection of her life, and she’s never quite gotten past it. Despite her best efforts, it has made her—well, for lack of a better word, a bit jaded.

Because she is never going to get her first love back. She’d put it out there, tapered it with a tenderhearted, childish wish, and simply gotten a _return to sender._

Betty knows it’s a problem with fantasy. Knows that she gets wrapped up in ideas of _should,_ expectations of _want,_ not need. Archie was always a daydream of what a love should look like, should make her feel.

She knows this all, has analyzed it plenty with Veronica over and over, and still just can’t quite let it go. The massive break up with Adam had only proved that.

Realizing now that Jughead is still watching her, she finds herself saying, “He…was always an idea of romance, to me. But sometimes fantasies feel better than reality, even when it’s not healthy. So it still hurts to see him really…committing, I guess.”

Jughead nods, but not in a way that says he really seems to understand. She wonders if he’s ever been in love.

“So _this_ wedding is supposed to be my practice run,” she continues, sighing. “And based on tonight, I don’t think it’s going to go that well. Especially the alone at the singles table thing, which is bound to happen again.”

“Oh, this was the singles table?” He repeats, clearly sarcastically, and grinning broadly. “Hadn’t noticed.” She passes him a wry look. “I mean, hey, I get it. Weddings suck. Dramatic gestures do not love make, in my opinion, so anything that’s such an overt statement of it—makes me immediately suspicious, you know?”

“As in, overcompensation? The bigger the wedding, the more doomed the marriage?” She supplies, and he chuckles darkly.

“Sure. But hey, it’s an archaic tradition, so almost all marriage is doomed in general, in that I think a lot of people get married for the wrong reasons. I’m not particular about where I throw my criticism.”

“Ah. Child of divorce?” She asks, cradling her face with her hand so she can lean in a little closer.

His eyes, which had been briefly watching the bridal party perform the _cha-cha-slide,_ turn back to her. The lights of the dance floor flick between red and blue, and he’s backlit by the churning colors, almost neon, like some kind of beat poet slung under the arm of Americana.

He folds his arms and leans back in his chair, one corner of his mouth tugged up. “Maybe.”

“Your cynicism is so cliché,” she hears herself saying, almost kindly, despite the resulting mild horror for being so forward.

He sighs, but the grin is still there. “Ideally a little less cliché than you think. But hey, I’m not the one mooning over the memory of a five year old.”

She opens her mouth to protest, particularly because she’s not used to being called out on this by anyone but Veronica or Cheryl, but, well, he is right. Her shoulders deflate. “True. So do I win the pity party?”

“Nah,” he says, snaking a green bean from her plate. “Maybe at the next wedding, though.”

“Ha, ha,” she says, digging her chin into her palm. “But. Probably. I don’t know how I’m going to get through it without having a panic attack. Ply myself with wine, I guess.”

Jughead is watching her, the slightest movement in his brow that she cannot name. But before he can find his words, Midge is jogging over, her heels kicked off and her pink maid of honor dress billowing with the run. She seems perhaps a bit tipsy, grabbing Betty’s hand and pulling her to her feet.

“Betty! Come on, Nancy and I want you to dance with us!” She seems to notice Jughead is there a moment later, her eyes darting between him and Betty with the silent question all women know how to ask one another; _do you need an out, or do you like him and want to stay?_

And Betty realizes it’s both, remembering her firm rule about not hooking up at weddings. Not that she’s particularly great at casual sex as it is, but now that she’s been talking to him, she especially doesn’t want to feel like she’s using him for escapism from her own misery. And she is in no place for a relationship, _and_ that’s getting ahead of herself, as usual.

He might be interested, and she could probably find a way to justify that curiosity, but she’s not going to find out tonight, and thus probably not ever.

So she just runs a smoothing hand down the front of her lavender dress, and as it’s also strapless, makes a plan to tug it up once she’s out of Jughead’s sight.

She may still have her mother’s stern propriety lessons rattling around in her head after all these years, and she may have learned to curse or try to be forward in rebellion of such, but Alice Cooper leaves a scorch mark. She doesn’t want to fix her dress in front of him, that would look improper.

“Let’s dance,” she agrees, and Midge squeals, tugging her away, barely giving Betty enough time to wave and call, “Nice to meet you, Jughead!”

Later, she catches his eye on her once, her arms in the air to _Dancing Queen,_ bathed in blue light, her hair lose in its bun, his expression too far away to read.

The next time she looks over, his seat is empty.

.

.

.

The rest of July comes and goes before Betty even has a minute to think about it; summer rainstorms boom out of nowhere, drenching New York City in five-minute-bursts, but the community garden next to her building is lush with resulting blooms, so she can’t complain.

Nancy returns from her honeymoon, still all aglow, even in the florescent of their conference room—and now that they’re away from the buoyant, public declarations of love, Betty can properly appreciate how happy she is.

The advertising team packs up their laptops and pens while Nancy wanders over to Betty’s side of the conference room, fanning out Betty’s own printouts for the roughs her book designers sent over. “Nice stuff this season,” Nancy comments.

“Yeah, I liked your presentation too,” Betty says, though a little thought nags at her, realizing he’d never actually given her his pseudonym. “So, were any of them Jughead? We were at the same table at your wedding, chatted a little. Just curious.”

Nancy looks up in surprise, which quickly turns into an almost sly expression. “Mm-hmm. The singles table, if I remember correctly,” she says, her inflection annoyingly interested.

“It wasn’t like that,” Betty insists, even as she shifts from one foot to another. “We just talked.”

That seems to coil Nancy’s smug look. She almost laughs. “Talked? With Jughead? I think my record is getting five words out of him in one sitting. Bless email, it’s the only place he’ll actually unload.”

Betty blinks. That was not the impression she got from him at all, but circumstances can change a lot about a person’s usual behavior. Her preoccupation with her champagne flute, for instance—one she deeply regrets, as she was so hungover the next morning she didn’t get out of bed all day. Probably particularly because she is not a big drinker in general; all it took was a couple glasses to put her under.

“Anyway,” Nancy sighs, restacking the printouts of Betty’s she’d been scanning. “He’s J. Pendleton. He writes a lot of investigative, murder-mystery type stories, but personally I think he’s getting a bit restless with the genre. He won’t admit it until he’s got another manuscript testing out something new, though.”

“Hey, don’t knock safety nets,” Betty says, holding open the conference room door for them both to pass through it. “I think that’s wise.”

“Aw, you two are a match made in paranoid heaven,” her friend retorts, giggling. “Glad to see there’s still an argument to be made for seating charts.”

“Stop,” she sighs. “Again, nothing happened.”

“Irrelevant,” Nancy replies, her fingers wiggling in a wave goodbye as they cut down different corridors.

And that’s the last of it, until July has finished rolling into June and August lumbers on, laying thickly over New York City with humidity and rain. But Betty doesn’t mind; she’s always found the sound of pattering drops to bring a sense of cleansing comfort, particularly summer rainstorms, arriving swiftly like a promise.

Betty is just ruminating over this, standing under the awning of her building, watching the sheets of water landing loudly beyond and mourning the fact that she left her umbrella upstairs, when she hears her name.

She turns, recognizing the voice but not knowing who to place it with. Jughead stands a few feet away, dressed in a pair of black jeans, sneakers, and a white undershirt underneath an open, faded blue shirt.

“Jughead!” She exclaims, genuinely surprised to see him again. Well, ever again, really.

“Hey,” he returns, scratching at his neck.

After an awkward moment of somewhat shocked silence on her behalf, she realizes the polite thing to do is to hug him, so she steps forward and embraces him. He freezes, but eventually his hand slowly comes up to touch her back, patting it once.

Wondering if that was perhaps the wrong thing to do, Betty pulls back. He doesn’t move, and for a moment, it’s just them standing halfway out of a hug, their faces not far apart, looking at one another. And then he shuffles back himself, a look on his face she doesn’t know how to describe. Discomfort, maybe, or something else.

“Um, how are you? What are you doing here?” She asks, clasping her hands in front herself.

He throws a shoulder back towards the building. “Meeting with Nancy. She wanted to show me the finished cover and go over about a few edits. That’s the nice thing about living in the same city as your publisher, getting to talk in person.”

Betty gives him a skeptical look. “Nancy told me she was lucky to get five words out of you.”

He might flush. “I’m…listening. You know. I’m there to take notes,” he explains, shrugging. “I speak, just when I think it’s important.” He pauses, his tongue swiping across his teeth. “So, you two were talking about me?”

“No,” Betty says quickly, her turn to blush. “You were in Nancy’s fall schedule presentation.”

His eyebrows settle back into normal place. “You heard about the new Princess Diaries book I have planned, then?” He cuts back, with that kind of drawling amusement she’s come to appreciate about him.

“So excited for it, Meg,” she sighs. “But really, I’ve actually been meaning to check out your work, Jughead Pendleton. Heard you got some good reviews to your name.”

“Jones,” he corrects. “I mean, Pendleton is my middle name. I’m Jughead Jones, for the record. Wouldn’t want you getting the wrong idea about me, thinking my name is any worse than it already is.”

She glances at him, suddenly unsure what to make of this whole conversation. Is he…trying to flirt with her? Or at the very least, get to know her? But then surely he wouldn’t have been so awkward about the hug, right?

“Well then, for continuity’s sake,” she says, gesturing to herself. “Cooper, Betty Cooper.”

“I’m not _going_ to make a James Bond joke, just letting you know that I thought of one,” he intones, grinning. “Anyway. I should be heading back to Brooklyn. Got an article to finish.”

“You’re a reporter too?” Betty asks, almost frustrated about how _on paper_ this is all feeling.

“Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “Nothing heavy. I write freelance for a couple of magazines, on the side. Reviews. Mostly music stuff.”

Her face pitches into an impressed expression. “Rolling Stone?”

“Pitchfork. My sister works there, so it is pure nepotism at it’s most finest. But I tried the whole principled thing, and learned that unfortunately, capitalism is the beast on all our backs. Money is money.” He shrugs. “So I try not to squint too closely at it. Anyway—uh, curiously, are you just standing here for the fun of it, or were you heading out?”

“I was going to take a coffee break, but I forgot my umbrella upstairs,” she sighs, looking back at the rain, showing no signs of letting up. “But you said you have a deadline, so I’ll let you go.”

“Yeah, deadline,” he says, blowing out a breath and opening up his black umbrella. “Alright. Well, I’ll see you around, Cooper, Betty Cooper.” He tips one finger from his forehead in her direction, in some kind of mock salute, and then he’s gone, walking off towards the A train.

As he cuts around a corner, Betty turns her eyes back onto the rain. She finds she doesn’t much appreciate it anymore.

.

.

.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Veronica says, rushing around to kiss Betty’s cheek, and then Cheryl’s lips. “Ugh, long day. You’d think absolutely everyone has the competence of a sea slug without me. I had so many suits to file, it’s amazing I have any manicure left at all. I mean, look at this,” she says, holding up the back of her hands to flash them one chipped nail out of an otherwise perfect set of gleaming, navy blue polish.

“You’re late,” Cheryl says simply, her wide, red lips pursed.

“I’m not late,” Veronica sniffs, her chin in the air. “You were both early.”

“I was early,” Betty says, smiling. “Cheryl was on time. You were late.”

“Semantics,” comes the response, waving a dismissive hand in the air, as Veronica slides onto her stool.

“Well, late or not, we still ordered you a French Cabernet,” Betty adds, pushing forward the long-stemmed glass of dark liquid.

Veronica’s expression is equally parts genuinely touched and panderingly simpering as she gathers the glass close. “Have I told you today that I love you?” She sighs, the painted plum of her lips matching the color of the drink.

“Hello? I’m right here,” Cheryl cuts in, eyes rolling, but her mouth fidgeting with a grin as Veronica reaches over and squeezes her hand.

“So,” Veronica says sharply, turning back to Betty, both hands now in the air between them. “Catch me up, Girl Talk. We haven’t seen you in so long!”

This is true; their weekly meet up at their favorite, warmly lit wine bar halfway between Betty and Veronica’s offices had been delayed for much of the summer, as Veronica and Cheryl had been busy sunning themselves and Instagramming cobbled-street-romance while vacationing in Italy.

“Well, we had our fall season pitches last week,” Betty starts, distinctly aware that every single time Veronica asks her about her life, she has very little else to offer up other than work related information. “I have a new author I’m really excited about, she’s so sweet. Oh—and Nancy told me to tell you she was sorry you two couldn’t make the wedding, but hopes you had fun in Rome.”

“Oh, right, she must be back from her honeymoon by now,” Veronica chirps, one hand curled underneath her chin. Then her mouth twists downwards, her voice lowering. “How was it for you? All the wedding stuff?”

Betty blows out an exasperated breath. “Okay, why does everyone keep acting like this whole wedding thing is such a big deal? Just because I broke off an engagement doesn’t mean I was traumatized.”

“Oh, please,” Cheryl says, flipping back a curtain of long red hair, her eyes once again rolling faster than King Henry could roll heads. “I _just_ got back from my vacation, must we jump back into Betty’s newfound sense of existential nihilism already?”

“Thank yo—wait, hey,” Betty says, eyes narrowing. “Not fair.”

“It is fair,” the redhead counters sharply. “You’ve had, what, twenty-five years to get over Archie Andrews? And from where I stand, you’ve only gotten worse. And Veronica was the one who actually dated him, but you don’t see her crying over spilled orange juice. Move _on,_ little egg.”

“I am over him,” Betty huffs, her hands curled at the edge of their round table. Cheryl arches an unconvinced brow. “I _am._ Veronica, tell her.”

“She is,” Veronica agrees, though her tone obliquely carries a _but._ And then, her eyes flicking onto Betty, “But…well, sweetie. You and I both know he represents a certain amount of symbolism for you. Symbolism of which, as soon as I became aware of, I ended things with him, if you’ll recall. We were never meant to be, anyway. But, I digress; you made a declaration of love that went unreturned, and thus it makes witnessing great declarations of such hard for you. That’s perfectly understandable.”

Both Betty and Veronica look at Cheryl, eyes again rolling. “Whatever. I don’t recall asking for your amateur psychoanalysis, but fine. I get it.”

“Can we change the subject, please?” Betty asks, sighing, but her best friend is eying her curiously, in the way that she does when she’s struggling with whether or not to voice a thought.

“I just wish you didn’t have to go alone,” Veronica says, all in a rush, clearly as if she can’t help herself. “Can’t you bring me as a plus-one? For solidarity?”

“Veronica, I’m sure Archie didn’t invite his exes to his wedding for a reason,” Betty says flatly, though secretly touched all the same for her protective nature.

“Then bring Cheryl,” Veronica suggests stubbornly, even though she’s far too smart for such a useless, obstinate argument.

“Right, because that’ll look so much more subtle, bringing the ex’s current girlfriend,” Cheryl says, her tone dry.

“Point taken,” Veronica says, her lips twisting into a slight pout. She looks back over at Betty. “What about Midge?”

Betty sighs, thinking privately that of all the people at this table, the once-socialite is the last one who needs a refresher in traditional etiquette. “Plus-ones do not qualify for friends, as Val and Archie know you all are. They’re for dates, V.”

“You _could’ve_ started dating Midge, for all they know,” Veronica insists, and then takes the kind of big breath that precursors a trademarked Lodge rant. “Bisexuality—”

“Midge is engaged,” she counters, desperately wishing Veronica would do something uncharacteristic like _drop it._ “Anyway, again, reminding you that I’d like to change the subject.”

“Only because you’re trying to avoid the reality that Archie’s wedding is making you already retroactively anxious,” Veronica replies, lips pursed.

Betty sighs. “So I’m anxious currently, and simultaneously in the future, while also reminiscing about the anxiety that would be then past? How exactly am I doing all that? Do you know something about time travel that I don’t?”

Cheryl throws her a rare, amused smile, but Veronica plows right on, ignoring her. “I just don’t understand why you’re even going,” she huffs, folding her arms over the top of the table.

“Because I want closure,” Betty says, her voice slightly raised. She pauses, finding a moment to resume normal pitch. “I shouldn’t have been with Adam for a bunch of reasons. Archie wasn’t one of them—but when I broke off the engagement, I just felt so…tired. Like it all came back to me at once. Archie didn’t mean to hurt me so many times, but he did. And it made me feel broken, and unwanted. And I’m _sick_ of that feeling hanging over my head. I want to close the book; I want to _see_ it closed. I think I can only get that by actually _watching_ him get married, you know?”

For the first time tonight, Cheryl’s expression turns to one of actual, genuine sympathy. She and Veronica exchange looks, the mood instantly changing.

“Look,” Veronica says, letting out a breath, her voice much lower and less bullish. “I get that, sweetie. That’s totally valid. And you _know_ I’m all about the independent woman. I’m not trying to force you to start dating again. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also…worried about you going through all that emotional weight alone. That’s why I’m just saying—bring a date. Someone to have by your side if you get anxious. Someone you trust. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I know I deliberately wasn’t invited, but I’ll throw social grace into the wind. Let me come with you.”

Betty rubs at her eyes, closed to her best friend, unable to go through this conversation much longer. She knows she’s trying to help, but this just isn’t going to go anywhere productive. “Veronica…”

“No, I mean it,” her best friend interrupts, in her typically adamant tone. “I’m sorry, but I know I’m right about this. Betty, just let me—”

“I’m already seeing someone, okay?” Betty blurts out, for no other reason than to get Veronica to stop. And it absolutely, finally works; Veronica’s mouth snaps shut at once.

And then, almost shrilly, _“Quoi?”_

“Yes, what?” Cheryl laughs, her look pointed.

“Please don’t act like it’s so impossible,” Betty says, sighing, even as she has absolutely no idea what she’s saying, save for the distant, dim certainty that this is a terrible, terrible plan. “That’s not helping anything.”

“No, no,” Veronica says quickly. “I just meant…well, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me twenty minutes ago, when we could’ve spared ourselves this entire conversation?”

“Well, you didn’t let me get very far into said conversation,” Betty points out, and technically, this is the truth.

There’s a long pause.

“No, you’re lying,” Cheryl says finally, decisively. Betty stills; it’s like being doused in cold water. Or being caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or—whatever idiom applies, because Betty’s brain has short-circuited at being called out so immediately. Cheryl sighs. “Sorry, I find it hard to believe you’d keep this to yourself. You two tell each other everything. Literally everything. Veronica gets mad at you when you get a pedicure without her, for god’s sakes.”

The woman in question holds up a silencing hand, her silver bracelet jangling forcefully. “That was one time, there were extenuating circumstances, and you’re exaggerating. Betty, please continue.”

“I’m not lying,” she says, in a strained voice that probably isn’t helping her case. _Think of something._ And then, without intending to, Jughead’s face materializes in her mind. “Um, we met at the wedding. He’s a writer. One of Nancy’s authors.”

Cheryl makes a skeptical noise, and Veronica pulls herself out of shocked silence. “Betty, that was a month and a half ago. How couldn’t you have told me?”

“You were on vacation! And we haven’t been seeing each other that long,” Betty says, wondering if, still operating under technicality, this isn’t quite a lie. She has, to all effects, _seen_ him. “You want me to prove he exists? Here, I’ll google him,” she adds, pulling out her phone. She quickly types _J. Pendleton_ into the search engine, and a list of Pitchfork articles and book reviews pops up.

Both women grab for the phone, but Veronica is faster. Betty cranes her neck anxiously, watching her click on the images option, which brings up mostly pictures of Pendleton blankets, but one or two black and white headshots of Jughead, clearly from an author’s bio.

“He’s cute,” Veronica says approvingly, passing the phone to Cheryl, who makes an ambivalent kind of noise at Jughead’s face. “Well, this is perfect. You already met at a wedding, so I’m sure he’ll be happy to escort you to another. What does the _J_ stand for?”

“Jughead,” Betty says, and Cheryl openly scoffs, her laugh high and loud.

“Well, lord knows no one could make up _that_ name,” she sighs, handing Betty back her phone. “Fine, fine. I believe you. So, can we put this to bed now? I’d actually like to pass the Bechdel test before my next drink, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes. But first, honestly, this deserves a toast,” Veronica says, raising her glass and clearing her throat in a way that brings reality back down onto Betty, and hard. “To Betty, who is slaying her dragons and solving her problems.”

Cheryl too raises hers, and, trapped, Betty follows in suit, her throat thick with thought.

The sound of tinkling glass meeting rings like a tiny, ominous, warning bell.

Betty swallows.

_What did you just do?_

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was _supposed_ to be a short, drabble response to a tumblr prompt, but, well, these things are known to spiral, as we just saw betty herself do. this is actually a perfect example of my warring desires not to juggle fics and my stubborn insistence on doing things the long way.
> 
> anyway, my calculations are usually wildly off, but i genuinely see this being about 3 or 4 chapters. or god, i hope so.
> 
> it's always a fun challenge exploring a bit of a role reversal, but honestly i think even canon!betty, with all her hope and soliloquies, is still vulnerable to nihilism. this is kind of my take on her and archie if there had never been veronica or jughead around to help her move past him at the right age; so she's trying it now. 
> 
> also, again, this is firmly comics!chuck. don't get me started on how much i hated what they did to that sweet, artistic boy. there's actually quite a few comics characters in this fic that haven't made it to the tv show yet, actually.
> 
>  _anyway,_ as always, reviews and comments are invaluably appreciated, particularly in the fun, motivational sort of sense. let me know what you thought!


	2. Chapter 2

The way Betty sees it, she has three options.

Option A is to just to flat out come clean. This is, objectively, probably the wisest move. Betty is not a great liar, whereas Cheryl is an excellent reader between lines, and Veronica could be hurt by the deception. And realistically, she probably won’t get very far into this plan as it is.

All Betty has to do is just sit Veronica down, explain that she’d been overwhelmed in the moment, and hope that Veronica’s well-placed but overbearing sense of duty over Betty’s happiness will subside.

_As if._

It’s fairly unlikely that this will at all play out in a way that appeases everyone; Betty knows Veronica far too well to be that naïve.

Cheryl will happily summon a rainstorm of _I told you so’s_ and Veronica will just circle back to her original argument: that Betty shouldn’t be going alone, or better yet, not at all.

And then she’s just back at square one, which is the moral equivalent of clapping her hands over her ears and singing her _la-la-la’s_ while Veronica paces in front of her, demanding they eschew tradition. And Cheryl would probably be in the back, flatly suggesting Betty cut through the red tape and just hire an escort to be done with it.

But Option B is the gamble.

Option B is that Betty should just _ask_ Jughead out, make dating him legitimate, and then, at some point next month, casually drop that she really needs a date to this wedding they’d been vaguely talking about before and try to convince him to accompany her.

And in some regards, this feels like the obvious solution. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst, either.

She’s definitely attracted to him, and rarer still, she even thinks he’s funny. But it would also feel like she was using him, somehow, and she cannot do that, even if she was being generous and saying there’s at least a chance it’s mutual.

Even though the only thing she has to go on is that Nancy said he wasn’t a talker, but he certainly didn’t seem to mind talking to her. Still, that feels like a flimsy basis for romance.

Not to mention that extremely awkward hug outside the building last week, the way he’d barely moved but to pat her on the back, like she was some kind of old, sick dog that he felt sorry for.

Frankly, he’d looked more like he’d been kicked in the stomach than actually enjoyed it, so considering that, she’s definitely not sure of anything. She knows, at least thanks to Nancy’s seating chart, he’s probably still single, but that doesn’t mean that he’s interested in girls, let alone her.

Plus, even if he did agree to one date with her, that’s absolutely no guarantee he’d agree to more, let alone such a big one like a wedding.

So if she asks him out, and he turns her down or they break up, that pretty much kills her plan right there in the cradle. She wonders if maybe that would be for the best, if she should just end this here and now, because really, how _well_ can this end? How can she even actually properly execute it?

Betty can be called a lot of things, but scheming is not one of them.

But she knows her best friend well enough to realize Veronica will never let this go otherwise, so Betty considers Option C, which oddly, and completely illogically, feels like the safest bet.

Option C is just to talk to Jughead, explain what she’s done, and beg him to help her out anyway. At least with that option, there’s the tiniest chance that he’ll take pity on her.

After all, they _have_ already talked about how miserable weddings are, which is why she thinks he might have a bit of sympathy for her situation. She definitely doesn’t know him well enough to ask of it as a favor, however; she’ll have to come up with something to offer him in thanks or payment. She can clean his apartment. Cook him dinner for a month straight? Or edit a manuscript he’s not ready to show Nancy? No, that feels redundant. Why would he want that, when he already has an editor?

She doesn’t even know him well enough to know what he’d want in return, and that feels like a bit of a sign, one that weighs heavy in her stomach as she crosses down the corridor, towards Nancy’s office.

With a big, steadying breath, Betty raps lightly against Nancy’s doorframe. She looks up from her desk, a grin already in place. “Hey sugar,” she greets fondly, folding her arms over her desk. “What’s up?”

“Um,” Betty starts, trying to steel herself. But she’s going to have to sacrifice her dignity several times over for this plan to work, and this, unfortunately, is where it must start. She takes another breath. “Well, I’ll just say it: Jughead…is he straight? Or, at least interested in women?”

Nancy blinks, and then her lips purse into a smile. “Of course, I’ve never asked him, but he once brought a girl to a fundraiser we threw. And based on his choice of heroines, it’s arguable that he’s even got a thing for blondes,” she adds, giving Betty an obvious once over.

Her cheeks warm, and her mouth opens and closes once, simultaneously searching for her next words while warring her instinct to bat away compliments. Luckily, Nancy comes to her rescue. “Let me guess. You want his number?”

Betty laces and re-laces her fingers. “Maybe his email?” She asks, and Nancy smirks, clicking the head of her ballpoint pen very decisively. She swivels back to her computer, types furiously for a few moments, and then copies something down onto a post-it note.

She rips it off cleanly, offering it out with the sticky side stuck to one very pointed finger. Betty scrambles forward to take it, her face still flushed red.

“You two make an odd amount of sense, actually,” Nancy adds, settling back onto her elbows. “Just don’t make things messy for me, if you can. I’d like not to be editing the story about the green-eyed girl who broke his heart next year.”

“The Van Morrison song that never was,” Betty chirps, forcing a smile, even as she privately thinks that of all the people involved in this plan, Jughead has the best likelihood of walking out of this unscathed—but, of course, tells Nancy none of that.

Once back at her own office, Betty closes the door and presses herself against the soft wood grain for a long moment, attempting to bottle her anxiety. She doesn’t know why this makes her feel so uniquely adolescent again; it’s not even a real flirtation, after all.

Obviously, she’s made overtures to men before. In fact, the entire reason she’s in this predicament at all is because of the time she got it in her head that she should try to initiate a relationship with a person who saw her as just a friend.

And here she goes again, with practically the same idea. But this time, Jughead probably doesn’t even see her as a friend. Doesn’t see her as an anything. What is wrong with her?

Perhaps she should start writing cookbooks.

She could call it, _A Tablespoon of Salt: Select Recipes For the Hungry and Foolhardy._

_Dear readers, simply add a teaspoon of irony, a drop of self-loathing, a cup of wastrel poetry, all the pleases in your kitchen cupboard, and voila! The perfect formula for repeating your past mistakes._

Betty closes her eyes and blows out a breath, gathering herself, and then marches forward to her desk and pulls up her email browser. Jughead’s address is simple, even if she doesn’t totally understand it—jfpj3 at a gmail account. Odd, but her first email address was an ode to a backstreet boy, so she’s in no place to judge.

_Hey, Jughead!_

_It’s Cooper, Betty Cooper. Nancy gave me your email. Had something I wanted to talk to you about. Was just wondering if you’d like to maybe get a drink sometime?_

No, no, that sounds terrible. What, is this her first time ever flirting? Is this even flirting? Technically, it’s not supposed to be. Anyway, in addition to trying too hard to be casual, asking to get drinks has too strong a connotation.

She aggressively hits the backspace button until the subject body is empty again, cradling her forehead with her free hand. 

_Hey, Jughead!_

_It’s Betty, from Random House and/or the wedding, and/or the time you ran into me under the overhang of the office._

_Nancy gave me your email address because there was something I wanted to run by you. Would you be able to meet for coffee sometime?_

_Best,_  
_Betty_

She deletes a stupid smiley face from the end of the last sentence and rereads it, her teeth nibbling onto her bottom lip. This could almost pass as a professional inquiry, just vague enough to make him consider it. Betty nods to herself. This could work.

Hitting send before she can think twice, thrice, and then rewrite it four more times, Betty pushes back from her desk, willing herself not to sit there refreshing the page until her fingers bruise.

She decides to go make some tea in the break room, and hides away there, distractedly over-steeping her tea bag, until Nancy and another fiction editor appear in the doorway, in the middle of a conversation.

Nancy flashes her a large, knowing grin when she spots her, and Betty almost knocks over her drink in her haste to flee the room, because she’s apparently still feeling painfully immature about all of this.

But Nancy doesn’t know Betty’s intentions, doesn’t know it’s not real, and that seems to makes it all the worse, because Nancy thought they _made sense_ and it just makes her feel like an asshole.

With nowhere else to go but back to her office, she drags her feet back there, once again closing a door she normally leaves open. She settles into her chair, places the tea mug down with care, and exhales slowly before checking her email.

There’s a response.

_Hey Betty,_

_Yeah, I can do that. Want me to come up to the office tomorrow? There’s a couple of coffee haunts around your building, if memory serves._

_-Jughead_

It couldn’t have been that easy.

No questioning of her motives, no suspicious doublespeak? Just _‘yeah, I can do that’?_ And offering to come to _her,_ even?

Blinking, she types back, _No need to battle midtown on my behalf! You live in Brooklyn, right? I’m in Greenpoint. We could meet for coffee this weekend? I know a nice little café on Manhattan Ave. Or I could come to you. Just let me know!_

A few minutes later, _I’m actually in Greenpoint too, or just outside of it, anyway. This weekend is kind of busy for me, in that I’m supposed to be locked away in my room, listening to the new Mac DeMarco album and trying to dissect alt-alt-alt pet sounds. So if it’s all the same to you, I could meet tonight. Lmk._

Betty stares at the email. He wants to meet tonight? She then looks down at herself, at her outfit of a simple blue button up and jeans, of the slight stain blooming on her sleeve from sloshing her tea around, and has a moment of panic.

Fake date or not, she still wants to look a little cuter than this, or at least nominally better than the time he’d seen her outside the building, practically drenched in summer sweat.

But she could always leave a little early to go home and change, and decides that maybe it’s the right move, getting this over with. Waiting till the weekend would’ve just turned her into a wreck.

So she thinks of the nicest bar with the nicest lighting within proximity to her apartment, and writes back, _Alright! Broken Land, on Franklin? How’s 7? Thanks!_

_Yep. See you then._

Once again wondering how in the hell that felt so _easy_ and again cross-checking if Option B could actually work, she returns to the actual work she has to get done today at rush speed; she’s pretty sure her boss wouldn’t mind her taking off early, considering she’s only ever done that so rarely and usually for a long-established appointment, but once a goody-goody, always a goody-goody, as Cheryl might say.

She was too much of a nerd to ever cut class without good reason, and this is all more of the same; if she’s going to leave early, she better be done early too. And at quarter to five, she finishes up her last draft revision and prints it out to reread tonight at home, clicks off her computer, and then darts towards the elevators.

If she hurries her pace walking past Nancy’s office, she definitely won’t admit it.

.

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.

Once home, Betty throws her bag down in the hallway and rushes to her bedroom.

Before living here, she would’ve never been such an impolite roommate as to drop all of her things by the door and kick her shoes off to land where they may, but the real benefit of her best friend’s dating life is that Betty has inherited Cheryl’s old place _and_ her rent-control, and can finally, for the first time in her life, afford to live by herself.

It’s a little lonely at times, Betty having gotten used to all those years of hearing bumps in the night and the clattering of pans inopportunely and the grinding of coffee early in the morning, but in moments like these, where she’s scrambling for time and running around the apartment in just her underwear, she very much appreciates the solitude.

The train had been delayed between junctions for twenty minutes, which had effectively thrown off Betty’s attempt at being ahead of schedule, and now it’s past 6:30, and really, she should already be leaving to meet him.

She shakes down her ponytail, but finds her hair far too fluffed out a mess to allow to stay that way, so she gathers it back up, leaving a few framing tendrils around her face, deciding it’ll have to do. Despite a constant ebbing sense of comfort in the way she dresses, five minutes before she has to leave is probably not the time to start analyzing her appearance.

Betty digs through her drawers for something that catches her eye, and with half a grimace and half a spark of excitement, grabs for the little brown corduroy miniskirt she only breaks out for dates or at Veronica’s insistence, or usually both. But sometimes showing a little leg makes her feel more powerful, so it can’t hurt this time.

Pulling on a cap-sleeved pink top but deigning to leave the top couple buttons undone, she slips into a pair of low heels and snatches her purse back up from the floor, checking her reflection in the foyer mirror one last time.

Definitely a little more skin than normal, but not more than he’s already seen, thanks to her strapless little dress from the wedding. She applies a shade of blush lipstick and nods to herself in silent encouragement, and then heads out into the night.

She’s only been to this bar a couple of times; Cheryl claims to miss it once every couple of months and insists the three of them meet there so she can properly reminisce her old stomping grounds, as if they all don’t know she’s much happier in the Upper East Side with Veronica. But Betty never minds, as it’s always the easiest trek for her, a simple fifteen-minute walk from her appointment.

The bar is just as she remembers it; ambient, dimly lit but for the string of oversized twinkle-lights lining the ceiling, though this time sparsely occupied, given it’s a Tuesday.

She does a quick scan for Jughead, but appears to have beaten him, so she presses herself against the bar and orders a hard cider. She’s just finished placing her drink request when she feels a presence next to her; Jughead has arrived, dressed in what she’s learning is a typical window display of black clothing and drumming his knuckles along the counter top.

As they’re both standing between barstools, he’s close enough to reach out and hug, but she won’t be repeating that mistake again. He shifts from one foot to another, as if perhaps expecting her to.

“Hey,” he says finally, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye before turning to face her fully. He openly looks her up and down, mouth fidgeting with something else, but the bartender is returning with her drink and looking expectantly at Jughead, so he orders a beer and they wait in awkward silence while the bartender fills a glass from the well in front of them.

He reaches for his wallet, but Betty is already sliding her card across the counter. “It’s on me,” she says, smiling at him. “It’s the least I could do, for you agreeing to meet with me.”

Jughead’s brow very briefly creases, but he nods.

“Want your tab open or closed?” The bartender asks, plucking the card up from the bar.

Betty’s eyes dart to Jughead; if she says to leave it open, it implies she wants to stay here for a while. If she says to close it out, it could say the opposite. But this isn’t quite a social call, and she’s half-sure he’s going to want to run for the hills in about ten minutes, so Betty tells the bartender to close it out. If Jughead has a reaction to that, he doesn’t show it.

“I’ll get us a table,” he says instead, disappearing into the back of the bar with his beer in tow.

After she’s signed and tipped for the drinks, Betty finds Jughead in a lowly lit corner booth. He passes her a thin smile when he sees her, and the room is almost too dark to really tell, but she can almost swear his eyes are lingering on her legs as she approaches.

“So,” she says sharply, setting in across from him.

His eyebrows rise. “So,” he echoes, with an edge of amusement. “You said you wanted to run something by me?”

“Right,” Betty sighs, staking out a stalling sip of cider. Now’s the time to make her decision—Option B or Option C. _Please date me, or please,_ please _fake date me._

Golden light glitters in his eye as it falls on her, his expression curious but withheld all the same, and even if she thinks this kind of low, warm atmosphere certainly isn’t making him look less handsome, she can’t quite bring any words to her tongue.

And in a split second, she knows it’s going to be the safe option.

“Um, so I kind of did something stupid,” she says, all in a jumble.

Whatever he’d been waiting for, it certainly wasn’t that. His composure slips, eyes softening as his mouth curls upwards and, if she didn’t know any better, maybe charmed. “How’s that?” He asks, tilting his head at her.

“I did something really stupid,” Betty repeats, taking a big breath, though it does little to calm the ringing in her chest. “I have this friend, right? Veronica. She’s my oldest friend, my best friend, actually, and I love her, but she’s really…she picks a stance and won’t budge on it. No man is an island, but she is a rock. And it’s just hard to argue with her, you know?”

Based on his expression, Jughead clearly does _not_ know, but he at least waits for her to continue.

“The only way to get her off your back is to either bow to what she wants, or to find a solution so perfect that she can’t argue with it,” Betty goes on, wringing her hands in her lap. “So, you might remember from Nancy’s wedding that we talked about this other wedding I have to go to in a couple of months. Um, of this guy I used to…have feelings for, and Veronica was really worried about me going to it alone, let alone pestering me about why I was going at all.”

Jughead nods, still obviously confused, and Betty realizes she’s doing a horrible job of explaining. However, on the bright side, she’s definitely doing a great job at rambling.

“I know it sounds dumb, but I want to go to his wedding because I really need closure from the whole thing. I just…he’s been hanging over my head for most of my life and I’m really trying to find a way to move past it. I think seeing him get married will be the final step,” she says, closing her eyes so she doesn’t have to face his reaction. Not that it helps; she can still feel him watching her.

“That doesn’t sound dumb,” Jughead says softly, and Betty’s eyelids flutter up, unable to stave off the hope blooming in her chest.

“Veronica was just…nagging me like crazy about it, and I’d had a long day at work, and I don’t really like talking about Archie in general, and she just kept pushing and pushing for me to find a date or she was going to come herself—which she can’t, she’s his ex—and I just really wanted her to stop, so I…I sort of said…you and I were already dating.”

Unfortunately for Jughead, he had just been sipping his beer, and he immediately chokes on it, sputtering through his attempt at swallowing. Eventually, he manages it, wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “What?”

“I know it was so out of line,” Betty says quickly, her eyes round with worry. “We barely even know each other. I mean, we’ve only met twice before tonight. But you were the first person to pop into my head that my friends didn’t already know, and…I just really wanted her to stop pushing me about it.”

He stares at her, jaw ticking, but his face otherwise completely unreadable. “So you’re telling me because…what, you want to clear your conscious? Look, I’m flattered that you’d pick me of all people, but Jesus, Betty, I think you’ll still get into heaven with one little lie on your chart.”

“No, I’m telling you because…that’s part one,” she says, all in one breath. Jughead’s tongue digs into his cheek thoughtfully, as if realizing where this is going. “I’ve thought this through a lot, probably more than I should’ve, and decided if I back out of the lie, Veronica’s just going to start all over again, or worse, try to find me a date herself.”

“I get it. You want me to come with you to the wedding,” Jughead correctly summarizes, settling back in his seat and surveying her. She can’t place the drive behind his eyes, but something moves there, blinking out like little headlights upon a dark road.

She nods. “Well…knowing my friends, you _might_ have to show your face to them at least once, twice tops. Just to sell it and keep them off my back.”

“So, wedding date, _and_ ersatz boyfriend,” he says with a wry grin. Betty takes it as a good sign; he’s at least not storming out. He doesn’t even look annoyed upon second glance, but rather, in the right light, perhaps pleased.

“Okay, yes. But you’d really be saving my skin,” Betty sighs, looking at him. “Just name your price. Obviously, nothing…funny,” she says lamely, and he blanches, for the first time looking offended. She presses her lips together, relieved. She hadn’t really been worried about that, but, like she herself said, she doesn’t really know him. “But I can cook, or um, I’m actually pretty good at fixing things, or—”

“I want to write about it,” Jughead interrupts, looking almost like he regrets the words immediately. He pauses, swallowing whatever thought is there. “No real names, no identifying features or places. But the story of someone consciously trying to move on from an old love is a new angle for me, and the symbolism around all the wedding stuff would be a good dog-ear for that. So…I’ll fake date you, as long as you promise not to sue me for defamation.”

Betty raises an eyebrow. “Are you _planning_ on defaming me?”

“No, no,” Jughead says quickly, leaning forward across the table. “But I’ve been trying to break out from under the reviewing side of things, trying to write articles that actually mean something more. Honestly, this feels like the pitch I’ve been waiting for. So I’ll do it, just let me interview you once, and let me stay…observational. And I’d run everything by you before I submitted it anywhere, so you could pull anything you weren’t comfortable with.”

Of all the things she had been expecting him to say or do, this was definitely not it. She feels almost…disappointed, or maybe a little bit hurt, even as she immediately tries to chide the thought, foolish as it is.

After all, it’s not like she’d been hoping he would just gather her up in his arms, swearing fealty and that he’d do it for nothing but for a chance at her heart, like something cut out of an erstwhile Byronic monologue.

“Okay,” Betty breathes, nodding. “That…sounds fair. Deal,” she adds, offering him her hand to shake on it.

He almost looks surprised that she’s agreed so easily, but then again, she feels the same way. He reaches across the table and takes her hand. It feels warm and alive in her grip, like the fluttering of a moth desperately searching for a flame to call home.

“Okay, then. It’s a deal,” he agrees, and with a growing smile.

They shake, and while Betty distinctly muses that this is the best possible outcome she could’ve hoped for, she can’t quite dismiss that now-familiar tolling in her chest, the little song that urges her to turn back, _turn back now._

And yet, unable to help herself, that little moth finds its light, pressed and warmed, and she returns his smile.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the response thus far, guys! i'm touched you're all enjoying this story, especially because it's so different from my typically angsty/monologic ruminations on life. 
> 
> despite my best efforts, i think the story might jump up another chapter. but. we'll see. as a fun note, literally everything mentioned in this story thus far is real, like the bar, etc. the benefits of having lived in new york for a spell!
> 
> anyway, i'm determined to do something light and cute for once in my damn life, so let me know what you think! :)


End file.
